Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 12, 1994 TAG: 9410210004
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Yes, it's true.
I'm turning into one of those little old ladies who carries around her overfed cat with her wherever she goes.
Who baby-talks her cat.
Who says at restaurant doors, "Well, if you can't seat my sweet little kitty-cat" (then nuzzles her cat and murmurs, "Wussie, wussie, Kitty-poo"), "then I guess you can't seat me."
You know the type.
Well, that's me. (Or soon will be.)
So, yes, me and Wilbur (the cat) took a little vacation last week in a cabin on the banks of Craig's Creek where, for 21/2 glorious days, we didn't see another single human being.
That's the way me and the cat like it best these days.
You know ... one of those old ladies.
We spent our time seeing other things, thank you very much.
I saw: a skinny girl-cat wraithing the edges of the cabin yard, 15 painted turtles sunning on a log, a kingfisher flying hell-bent-for-leather upstream, a red-shouldered hawk swooping downstream, a kestrel, about a hundred phoebes and black-capped chickadees, one downy woodpecker, one green-backed heron pacing deliberately back and forth on the turtles' sunning log, a cheeky kid cardinal who apparently mistook me for a source of provender, berried Solomon's seal, a few small-mouth bass, a skinny yellow-and-black lizard with an astonishingly blue tail, and a lightning bug and a damselfly. Only one each. Remarkable, since in July when I was last at the cabin, thousands of damselflies danced across the creek's surface every day and thousands of lightning bugs echoed their performance every night.
Wilbur saw the skinny girl-cat. Of that, I'm sure. He chased her up a tree. Twice.
Everything else he saw, however, he saw in the dark, and he's not talking about it.
He spent his days sawing logs on a red quilt across the foot of the bed. Nights, he occupied the same space, but with his tail constantly twitching and his ears sharp.
I guess, deaf as he is, he was hearing odd things, too.
I heard katydids, crickets, a great horned owl, a couple of screech owls, and the neighbors across the creek coming and going at 3:30 in the morning. He probably heard a great deal more. But he's not talking about that, either.
I considered taking Wilbur with me on a boat ride, since he'd so enjoyed the trip in the car.
But, luckily, I decided against it. A frog thumped around in the back of the rowboat for a considerable time before managing to escape into the creek. Wilbur, already tied up in knots from the things he'd been seeing and hearing at night, just might have tried to follow that frog. It may be true that cats can swim, but I don't see any need for testing that hypothesis with my very own cat.
The trip seems to have energized Wilbur. He's been out nosing around in the weeds ever since we got home.
That's what a bit of R & R in the crisp mountain air will do for a body. Arouse the appetites! Stimulate the lungs! Inspire a renewed dedication to the work ethic!
At least, if you're a cat, it will.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB